


Boys Will Be Bugs

by countcarmine



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Friends, Friendship/Love, Gen, Sweet, Trans Cloud Strife, based on fanart, one instance of transphobia but it's from one dude, you've heard of transfemme cloud now get ready for...transmasc cloud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26189665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countcarmine/pseuds/countcarmine
Summary: I'm a dumb teen boyI eat sticks and rocks and mudI don't care about the governmentAnd I really need a hugI just turned fourteenAnd I think this yearI'm gonna be-
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	Boys Will Be Bugs

“Mom?”

“Hmm?” It was hard to remember what Mom was doing at the time, but he could remember her looking out the window. Maybe she was daydreaming. For some reason, it was especially hard to think of adults doing things that children would do, never mind parents. Mom stared out the window at lot, though. Everything else about her was getting fuzzy, the more time moved forward. But this was one of those conversations that stick with you no matter how long it’s been.

“…Why’s my name Cloud?”

“Oh, haha…” The question tore Mom’s attention away from the window, and she turned her attention to her child, eyes still a little unfocused. “I guess that’s not a normal name, huh?” No…not like Tifa, or Joey, or everyone else.

“Well, if you were a boy, we would have named you Claude.” If you were a boy. _If_ you were a boy. This conversation always stuck out to Cloud because it made him feel weird for reasons he couldn’t explain at the time. Even back then, when he wasn’t fully aware of _not_ being a boy, before she said that.

“So, why Cloud…?”

Mom shrugged. “I dunno. Claudia was already taken.” Cloud didn’t get it until she smiled and nudged him, like he was supposed to be in on a joke. “Claudia’s _my_ name, silly.”

“Wha-?!” This was also the first time he learned that parents had names outside of “Mom” or “Dad”.

“Yeah! And I thought ‘Cloud’ sounded better anyway.” It did. Clouds were nice and gender-neutral. They could look like pretty much anything, too, depending on who was looking at them.

Ever since that conversation, Cloud was aware that she was, in fact, a girl. She never really remembered her dad all that much, so it never occurred to her that boys and girls were…different. Or that she was more like her mom. Or she was _supposed_ to be, anyway. Mom never really cared about how Cloud acted or dressed, so being a girl was always this abstract idea at home. She could dress how she wanted and run around town with the other kids as she liked. Helping with chores was always something you were supposed to do, and even though Mom always intended to teach her about cooking and laundry, she never got around to it.

“Oh…maybe later.”

“Mmn, maybe when you’re older.”

Maybe she didn’t realize that Cloud would leave so early. Or she didn’t _want_ to.

But Nibelheim was such a small town.

Thankfully, the adults didn’t much care about Cloud wearing baggy shorts and loose-fitting t-shirts. Or maybe they minded, but they never said that out loud.

It wasn’t that uncommon for girls that age to be a little tomboyish, either. It wasn’t like girls that age had to look nice all the time. Hell, Tifa was more of an exception than the rule. If you didn’t know any better and were visiting, you’d think Tifa was the only girl surrounded by boys.

…Tifa…

Cloud couldn’t remember when they first met just because it felt like she’d always been around. They weren’t _that_ close; Tifa always hung around this group of boys and Cloud was too intimidated to do anything with them, but she orbited around the margins until Tifa noticed her. Then she ran off to go do something else whenever Tifa got too close.

“Cloud?”

Today wasn’t one of those days. Cloud stuck around for too long and got caught as Tifa tried to make a proper introduction. She always froze up whenever Tifa came too close. She was so pretty.

She always had these perfect little dresses and smooth, pretty hair, and clean skin wherever she went. Tifa made it obvious that she was a _real_ girl, and Cloud hated it. She didn’t hate Tifa or anything. She just didn’t want Tifa to look at her too closely.

“Hello? Hey!”

Being at home was fine. Mom was one of the “real girls” too, but she didn’t care. Whether or not Cloud’s “girlness” was real or not didn’t matter there. She was just Cloud.

It didn’t matter with the boys either because, after she bit Johnny for making fun of her, the rest of the boys stopped caring whether Cloud was a girl or not.

Tifa always brought it into such stark relief by just existing, though, so she didn’t want to-

“Cloud!”

“What!?” Cloud yelled so loudly as she turned around that it startled the both of them. Tifa gasped a little and then stared in silence. She leaned closer and squinted at Cloud, like she was studying her. Cloud backed away a bit, feeling her heart rile up in mild panic. Tifa was wearing a pretty, white dress today. It didn’t have a single smudge of dirt on it.

“Hmm.”

“…What?” Cloud asked again, quieter this time.

“…Are you really a girl?”

“Ghhhk!” Cloud made a noise that bordered on a wheeze at Tifa just coming out and asking. “Y-Yeah?”

“Yeah?”

“Well!” Cloud could feel herself getting defensive, but Tifa sounded genuinely curious, too. It wasn’t like Tifa to tease people. She could tell even when she was just watching her. This wasn’t teasing but it was still… “I mean…yeah? I guess.” Cloud didn’t have that good of an answer, even though it should have been obvious.

“You…guess?”

Cloud threw up her hands, as if emphasizing her…Cloudness. “Yeah? I know how I look-“

“Uh, no.” Tifa stopped her before this conversation could get even worse. “You don’t look bad! I’ve seen you around and I always thought you were a boy, but I heard the others talking, so…” Tifa let the rest of the sentence die while Cloud looked at her in silence.

“…I look like a boy?”

“Mmhmm. Sorry, I don’t wanna sound mean-“

“No, that’s…” Like a…boy. Something clicked, then, but at the time, Cloud wasn’t sure what it was. The idea of a pretty girl like Tifa, seeing her as a boy…on purpose…

“Aha, you’re smiling.”

“Ah!” Cloud covered her face and couldn’t think of what else to do, so she ran away. All the way home, she berated herself for acting like… _that_. Even Cloud knew the rules, despite everything. It was fine to be a tomboy until you went too far. It was fine for people to just assume, see whatever shapes they wanted, until you defined things. People could mistake you for a boy but you weren’t supposed to _like that_ , you idiot.

They never got to finish their conversation. After Tifa had that really bad fall, they went on as usual. Like Tifa didn’t call her a boy, and like that didn’t plant a seed in her.

Sephiroth first became known when Cloud was six, but he became _known_ when Cloud was ten. His image was everywhere back then. On TV, in the papers, in magazines. He may as well have been a teen heartthrob, and he _was_. But he was a soldier too, used to promote the call to war, not that Cloud was aware of that at the time. The only thing she was aware of was how _pretty_ he was.

Was it a crush? Maybe, as possible as it was for someone to have a crush at that age.

Her main focus was his hair, though. And his face, too. Whenever he came on TV, she’d scoot closer to get a better look at his delicate nose and lips. The idea of someone so pretty-looking being strong enough to defeat all those Wutai soldiers…

And his hair was so _long_. Cloud always insisted on cutting her own hair short, evidenced by the spikey mess she’d leave after cutting, but looking at Sephiroth…

She tugged at her hair, which was starting to get a little long already. Maybe she could grow it out. Not as long as Sephiroth’s, but if she could be a strong as him, it wouldn’t matter. Maybe that’s why he looked like how he did. If you were as strong as Sephiroth, you could look and act however you wanted, couldn’t you?

After that, Cloud spent her days “training”, which amounted to swinging a big tree branch around like a sword, lots of push ups and pull ups, and drinking all the milk in the house before Mom could use any of it. When Mom asked her what was going on, she suddenly started getting more veggies on her plate for dinner, but Mom did say it would help with training too, so who was she to turn down the support?

When Cloud was twelve, she overheard a couple of the older men talking while in the general store. She was picking something up for Mom when she heard, “Sheesh, Midgar’s full o’ freaks, huh?”

She turned to look for where the voice came from. Mr. Jones, the one who ran the inn, was talking to Mr. Salsby. Both of them were reading the Sunday version of the _Midgar Times_. Mr. Salsby leaned in to get a closer look at what they were reading.

“Y’think?”

“What kinda man gets surgery to look like a woman?”

Hah?

You can… _do_ that?

Cloud drifted to the other side of the store while she heard Mr. Salsby say, “Looks kinda cute, though,” before the conversation faded into distant mumbling and muttering. She stuck around there, pretending to look at things she wouldn’t actually buy, before quietly picking up a copy of the paper and heading to the register, along with the groceries. Mom always let her keep any change, so it wasn’t like she couldn’t buy it. But on the way home, it still felt like she was carrying a deep and terrible secret that she had to hide behind the bag of groceries.

When Cloud got home, she dropped the bag by the door, then hurried to her room, clutching the paper to her chest until she made it inside and shut the door. She didn’t even make it to her bed before opening the thick newspaper, flipping through to see what the two of them could have been talking about. News, news, classifieds, movies, sports. It took until the entertainment section before she found what they could possibly be talking about.

**_Former Soldier…Becomes Blonde Bombshell?!_ **

_Madison Kane, a former infantryman for Shinra Inc, has taken on a new life, body, and…gender?_

Cloud skimmed through the article. It ended up sounding like an ad for Shinra medical tech near the end, but there was a picture of her too. She was looking out to the reader with a wide-mouthed grin, making a victory sign.

She looked really pretty, but more than that, she looked…happy. It wasn’t the fake smile that most people did for pictures. She looked…

How funny, that Cloud couldn’t help but think of her as “she”. It looked like she’s never been anything else. Like her life as a man just…vanished.

Cloud stared at the wall for a long time. Something clicked again.

If…if Ms. Kane was able to do that, if a man could become a woman…was the opposite true?

She’d never heard of something like that. But it had to be true, right? It couldn’t just go one way, could it?

Mr. Jones called that lady a freak, and she was so angry for her that tears started streaming down her face. But, was she angry for just _her?_ Or was there another reason?

Cloud flopped down onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, then at the wall where her Sephiroth poster was. He wouldn’t let anyone call her a freak. If she were a…a…a b…

A boy. If she…if _he_ were…a boy. Oh God.

_“I always thought you were a boy, but…”_

What if Tifa was right the first time?

_“Midgar’s full ‘o freaks.”_

Cloud rolled over and stuck his- _his_ -face into the pillow, trying to muffle his crying.

_(why was this easier? “He” fit into place so much better, oh God)_

This would be so much easier if people could keep assuming things without him having to do anything. It would be so much better. They could see whatever patterns they were looking for, and if they happened to be male-adjacent, so much better.

He thought about Tifa assuming he was a boy, and smiled again, and cried about the fact that this made him so happy.

At fourteen, Cloud decided he was going to join SOLDIER.

He was pretty sure that women either couldn’t join or, at least, weren’t the main targets for recruitment. But if he made his case for actually being a boy, they’d make an exception, hopefully. He was late bloomer, for sure, but even now, puberty was starting. “Moontime”, as his mother very ominously called it, didn’t show up yet, thank God, but his legs were getting hairy and his chest was starting to feel sore. There wasn’t much time left. Maybe Shinra could even get him that hormone replacement stuff, whatever _that_ was.

He’d leave in the spring and he was going to tell Tifa about it first.

Ever since this all clicked into place, Cloud kept it under wraps for a long time. Not even his mom knew about it, but she probably wouldn’t care. That wasn’t really the point, though. He had to go over the logistics of everything, all in his head, before even thinking about saying one single thing about it in this one-truck town.

Using “he” for himself was what made the whole thing feel real, even if it was in his head. It wasn’t like he could do that often (who thinks about themselves in the third person?) but it felt nice. Like he’d dream up some fantasy where he’d be called _Mr._ Cloud Strife, and he’d get so excited about it, he’d have to pace around his room.

“Cloud” was a name that he liked, so he wasn’t changing that. Maybe “like” was too strong of a word, but he didn’t hate it either. He didn’t have very strong opinions about names, and at least “Cloud” fit him. Yeah, he’d keep it. It wasn’t like he was the only person on the Planet with a weird name. With Sephiroth in SOLDIER, he’d fit right in!

As for Tifa…well.

He wanted to let Tifa know first…about joining SOLDIER, at least. The plan was to go to Midgar and then come back here a new man…literally! Taller, buffer…stronger! Able to take down hordes of soldiers and monsters, just like Sephiroth. No one here will know what hit them! If he was going to be a boy, he wanted everyone to believe it. No chance for an argument.

That part should stay as a surprise. But he could at least tell Tifa about leaving. They hadn’t talked that much in years, since she always stuck to her group of friends and he…didn’t. But he wanted to tell her. He’d tell her tonight, at the water tower. Telling her, or anyone, would mean he’d have to follow through, and Mom would get way too worried about it. So, it had to be Tifa.

That night, he waited at the top of the water tower for over an hour. It was getting so cold and he almost got up to leave, but just when he thought Tifa bailed, he heard her climbing up the ladder.

“Hey!” Tifa gave him a small, breezy wave. Her dress was turquoise today. Cloud turned away from her, scratching the back of his head, hair bundled up in a pony tail.

“Hey…” He tried to bring his voice into a lower register without even knowing why. Maybe it was to test her reaction, or to sound cooler, but if she noticed, she didn’t say so. She just laughed to herself and sat down, further away than he would have liked.

“What’s up?”

“I’m leaving for Midgar in the spring.”

“…Ah.” He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he was expecting, but Tifa let the both of them sit with the news. She was probably thinking over what this meant because she got really quiet then.

“Figures. Feels like all the boys are heading to Midgar, too.”

“…Yeah.” Cloud stood up and stretched, staring up at the stars. They said that the lights were so bright in Midgar that you couldn’t even see the stars at night. He couldn’t even imagine what that would look like.

“I’m different, though. I’m gonna join SOLDIER.” This was another way to test the waters. No matter what the rules were, joining SOLDIER wasn’t really a “girl” thing. He could say what his other plans were without actually _saying_ them.

Regardless, Tifa didn’t react much. She just said, “Oh?” Like he suddenly dropped the news that he was going to become a millionaire on top of going to Midgar. Not that he cared. Cloud was starting to pace a bit, getting excited about the scenario that lived in his head for years.

“Yeah! I’m gonna move up in the ranks and be the best there is, like Sephiroth!”

“Sephiroth, huh…hmm…”

Tifa…didn’t seem that excited. Well, it was a lot to take in. If he said he wanted to be like Sephiroth, she was probably thinking of all the implications.

“Isn’t it hard to join SOLDIER?”

“Yeah…I’d probably have to stay there for a while.”

Silence. When Cloud turned to look at her, Tifa was facing away, holding her hand to her face. He could hear her sniffling.

“Huh? Tifa…?”

“…Will you…be in the papers if you do well?”

“Y-Yeah, I’ll try.”

“Hmm….” Suddenly, Tifa stood up straighter, wiping her face and turning to look at him. “Hey, Cloud…”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s make a promise, okay?” Tifa walked over, careful to not fall to the side or stomp too hard on the aging, wooden plank.

“When you get famous and if I’m ever in a bind…” She rocked back and forth on her heels, nervous, “you’ll come save me, okay?”

The question was so boggling, a girl asking to be her knight, asking like that, like she _knew_ , that Cloud could only say one thing.

“…What?”

“Ah, you know.” Even this dark, it was easy to tell that Tifa was turning red. “If I’m ever in a bind, my hero will come and rescue me. I want to…experience that, at least once.”

This was so dizzying that, again, Cloud could only say one thing, like a broken record.

“W…What?”

“Ohh…come on! Please?”

“Okay, I promise...”

They stood there, neither of them looking directly at each other. Cloud had to sit down again and think about what she was actually saying. Thinking back on it now, getting Tifa to say anything outright was like pulling teeth.

“…You know. That stuff’s usually said to guys, right?”

Even when Cloud wasn’t looking at her, he could feel her shrug from where he was sitting.

“I guess. But you’re joining SOLDIER and everything, so…”

He didn’t know why, but Cloud’s heart was fluttering so fast that it felt like he’d die if he didn’t say something, if he didn’t know for sure.

“Well…” His voice cracked from nerves, and he took a deep breath and tried again. “Like, let’s say I was. Or…I _could_ be.”

His ribcage felt like it was going to shatter at any second.

“Would you be…”

_Full of freaks._

“…Mad? At me?”

Cloud could hear Tifa stepping closer, until he felt her put her hand on his shoulder.

“Mad? Why would I be mad?”

“Um, forget it-“

“Cloud.”

He turned to look at her. Tifa was so close now that Cloud to see the redness in her eyes from crying. Crying about him leaving. Not about this.

“You’re still gonna come and save me if I’m in trouble…right?”

She smiled at him, and Cloud couldn’t help but smile back, a little, never more thankful for feeling stupid than at this moment.

“…Yeah. Thanks, Tifa.”

**Author's Note:**

> ....Hello. I'll bet you didn't see this coming.
> 
> This is because I was inspired by a headcanon and fan art from a twitter friend who doesn't have an account here, so I'm not sure how comfortable they'd be if I named them here, so I'll do it on Twitter instead when I link this, lol. And this is a one-shot too, for once! Enjoy!
> 
> The summary (and title) is from Boys Will Be Bugs by Cavetown. I misheard one of the lyrics as "I'm gonna be me" when it's actually "I'm gonna be mean", but I liked the feeling it gave me for this anyway, so oh well.


End file.
